Environmental Science Midterm Review
Chapter 1: Science & the Environment
1. What is meant by biodiversity?
2. Know the effects of the agricultural revolution on the environment.
3. What is meant by ‘a sustainable world’?
4. What is the difference between a renewable and nonrenewable resource?
5. What are the characteristics of a developing and developed country?
6. What is meant by an ‘ecological footprint’?
7. Know all the fields of study (ecology, geology, etc.)
8. What is the ‘tragedy of the commons’?
9. What is cost/benefit analysis?
10. Know the law of supply and demand.
Chapter 2: Tools of Environmental Science
1. What is the difference between the control group and the experimental group in an experiment?
2. What are the steps in the experimental (scientific) method?
3. Know the types of models.
4. What are the steps in the decision-making model?
5. What is meant by the term ‘statistics’?
6. Know the different types of values that were discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 3: The Dynamic Earth
1. Where are geologically active regions on earth located?
2. Explain how mountains are formed using plate tectonics.
3. What affects does erosion have on mountains, rocks, etc.?
4. What do the terms open and closed systems mean with respect to earth?
5. Where is the ozone layer located?
6. What is the relationship between altitude and temperature?
7. What causes ocean currents?
8. Where is most fresh water on earth located?
9. What is the main gas that causes the greenhouse effect here on Earth?
10. What would the climate be like if there were no greenhouse gases on earth?
11. What produces Oxygen?
12. Where does the energy on earth originally come from?
13. What does the Richter scale measure?
14. What is the biosphere?
15. What is the temperature of earth’s inner core?
16. What are the three oceanic layers called?
17. What are the five compositional layers of earth’s interior?
18. What are the five atmospheric layers?
19. Name and describe the three ways to transfer energy on earth.
Chapter 4: The Organization of Life
1. Know the difference between species and population.
2. Define habitat.
3. What makes an organism resistant to something?
4. Describe how populations use “selected traits” to evolve.
5. What organisms are able to convert nitrogen gas into a usable form?
6. What is an angiosperm?
7. What is the differene between biotic and abiotic factors?
8. What are bacteria and fungi important to the environment?
9. What are the major characteristics of each kingdom?
10. Know the ecological organization (individual, population, community, etc.)
11. What can organisms adapt to?
12. What is meant by the term coevolution?
13. How many kingdoms are there?
Chapter 5: How Ecosystems Work
1. What type of organism is usually at the bottom of the food chain?
2. How much energy is transferred from one trophic layer to the next?
3. What are fossil fuels and where do they come from?
4. What is the difference between primary and secondary succession?
5. Review the following cycles: nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus
6. What is cellular respiration?
7. What is photosynthesis?
8. Define the following terms: producer, consumer, autotroph, heterotroph, omnivore, herbivore, carnivore, decomposer, detritivore.
9. What is a food web?
10. What plant is a pioneer species?
11. What benefit do forest fires promote?
12. How do we get a mature oak forest?
Chapter 6: Biomes
1. Know the characteristics (climate, types of vegetation, types of animals, location) of each biome:
Tropical rainforest, savanna, temperate grassland, desert, temperate deciduous forest, taiga, tundra
2. What is latitude? Longitude?
3. Where are deserts found?
4. What is the main factor that determines what type of plants grow in a biome?
5. What is a threat to a grassland?
6. What would you find in an emergent layer of the tropical rainforest?
Chapter 7: Aquatic Ecosystems
1. What are advantages of wetlands?
2. What causes an estuary to form?
3. What are the five functions of wetlands?
4. Where are swamps typically found?
5. What causes most coastal pollution?
6. Describe how rivers change as they move down from mountains and towards the ocean.
7. Where are most marine organisms found?
8. What is meant by the term nekton, plankton, benthic?
9. What is the main factor that determines where organisms grow and live in the ocean?
10. How does a coral reef form?
11. What is the difference between a swamp and a marsh?
12. Why do estuaries function as nutrient traps?
13. What zone is cold and dark?
Chapter 8: Understanding Populations
1. What is meant by population density?
2. Know what the following terms mean: parasitism, commensalism, mutualism
3. What is the difference between density-dependent and density-independent factors? (give examples)
4. What is meant by carrying-capacity?
5. What is meant by reproductive potential?
6. Do parasites kill their host?
7. What is meant by the term exponential growth?
8. What is mean by random and clumped dispersion?
9. Be able to interpret predator-prey graphs.
10. Compare and contrast niche and habitat.
Chapter 9: Human Populations
1. What is a demographer?
2. What factors are most important in reducing infant death rates?
3. Why is reducing population growth so difficult in some developing countries?
4. What diseases can be spread through unclean drinking water?
5. What does educating women do for the population?
6. Why did the human population double between 1880-1990?
7. How are population pyramids created?
8. Know the 4 stages of demographic transition.
9. What do scientists use to predict population sizes?
Chapter 10: Biodiversity
1. What is meant by the term ‘endangered species’?
2. How many species are believed to be on earth?
3. Be familiar with the Endangered Species Act and what it accomplishes.
4. Are species becoming extinct at a faster or slower rate than in the past?
5. How does placing animals in restricted environments affect their reproductive success/help save species?
6. What groups of animals are most in danger of becoming extinct?
7. Where are most biodiversity hotspots located?
8. The major human causes of extinction today are what?
9. Where are most extinctions occurring in the world?
10. Know the levels of diversity (species, genetic, ecosystem)